Victor Espinosa
 

Taken to the hospital after a horse he was working had a heart attack and fell.
Just happened, TVG will have more details as they hear.

http://live.drf.com//nuggets/43872-v...ent-at-del-mar

As bad as it was, at least Espinoza wasn't killed and no other horses were hurt. :(

Four year old colt with, what, six starts?

And he drops dead of an "apparent" heart attack?

A necropsy should be performed on the horse to determine in what manner his heart was defective and how such defect went undetected....

Lifetime record was 9-4-2-1 with $375,100 in earnings... He certainly wasn't overraced.

Then again some Thoroughbred families have a stronger genetic tendency towards heart failure. Hennessy and his grandson Scat Daddy immediately come to mind.

I took a quick look only at Horseracing Nation's record on him.

I'm just really sick of young horses dropping dead of apparent undiagnosed heart conditions!!

True, as much as these horses are worth and the fact that other lives are at stake when these events occur, you'd think preventing/minimizing such tragedies would be a priority.

Could be just a heart attack and bad luck but we all know who the "Move'm Up Guys" are.

https://www.bloodhorse.com/horse-rac...sting-proposal

Excerpt:

"We have limited ability to prosecute out-of-competition testing with current regulations. ... In reality, horse racing does not have a robust anti-doping program," Arthur said. "It can be best described as a medication control program. Medication control is very important and necessary. We not only need to test for performance-enhancing drugs, as is the focus in human sport testing, but for drugs that impact horse welfare and horse and jockey safety. ... Horse racing must also deal with performance-hindering drugs that could be used to stop a horse from its best performance, which is not generally considered a problem in human sport.

Arthur continued to point out the need for out-of-competition testing because "races are won in training," where he said doping is most effective.

C-3 Fracture...so not paralyzed so that is good news, i guess. tough game.

Sad to admit that this was my first thought. .... Was he loaded up?

This sport will not ever grow....I'm sorry but it will not. Those who can clean it up refuse to do so, and this BloodHorse piece is a perfect case in point as to why.:mad:

Godspeed, Victor. Get well. <3

The safety of jockeys, exercise riders, stable staff is a good enough argument for out of competition testing. **** if steroids/other drugs are "cheating," that is secondary.